The Care and Soothing of Depressed Feral Rabbits
by Morbidly Obscure
Summary: Something's wrong with Izaya, and Mikado gets stuck with the task of fixing it. It's days like this that make Mikado wonder what he did to make the universe hate him. Oh, and the rabbits? Purely symbolic...or are they?


**Ah, this is been on my mind FOREVER. I know it's silly and I know it's waaaaaay OOC, but I…just…couldn't…help it. That said, has anybody noticed Izaya's random adorable angst!mode? It's very cute, and very OOC, and yet legitimately canon. But I may have taken it too far. Oh well. Please comment, criticize, praise, flame, etc. As long as people review at all, I'm happy =]**

**OoO**

Early Sunday morning, Mikado's cell phone blared out from its place on his night stand. Under normal circumstances, Mikado would be annoyed at being woken up so early, but in this case the ring interrupted a particularly horrifying nightmare involving a horde of angry, feral rabbits.

Mikado shuddered, trying to shake the bizarre dream off as he answered the phone.

"Hello?" The teen asked blearily.

"Ryuugamine Mikado, your presence is required immediately at Orihara Izaya's office," A familiar voice said in a formal and rather robotic voice.

"Y-Yagiri-san?" Mikado asked, not having processed the woman's words yet. He wasn't sure why Namie was calling him; all he knew was that she frightened him.

"Obviously. Why are you still on the line?" Namie's voice became irritated, "Did I not say immediately?"

Still not quite awake, Mikado found himself thinking that perhaps his whole life was just a dream, and that someone somewhere was enjoying it.

"Why does Orihara-san want to see me?" Mikado asked, as a mental image of the smirking informant flashed into his brain. When Mikado thought about it, those glittering red eyes were not unlike those of a feral rabbit...

On the other end, there was a pause before Namie answered, "Well, he doesn't, really."

"Then...why am I supposed to be coming over?" This was too much for Mikado's sleep-deprived brain to make sense of.

Namie sighed, annoyed that this was taking so long.

"Izaya has a problem. He's acting weird-even for him-and I can't stand it anymore. You're going to fix it."

The "or else" was not stated, but it was heavily implied.

Mikado balked, "I don't think I'd be able to-"

"You're the leader of the Dollars, right? You're smart. Just do it."

With that, Namie hung up, and Mikado stared numbly at the wall for five minutes. The concept of spending any time with Orihara Izaya was a terrifying notion, but somehow the thought of what Namie would do to him if he didn't was infinitely worse. He got dressed and took the bus to Shinjuku.

**OoO**

"Uhhh," Mikado shifted his wait from foot to foot in front of Namie's desk.

"Oh, you're here. Good."

"Yeah, but Yagiri-san I really don't-"

Namie cut him off with a glare that could kill puppies and pointed at the door to Izaya's office.

"Fix him."

With a gulp, Mikado took a few steps to the door. Why did he suddenly feel like he was about to step into a lion's den? Oh, right. Izaya. Well, here goes nothing.

Behind the door, the apartment was dark. The lights were off, and the wall-spanning windows that Izaya so loved were blocked off with plain black curtains; even the informant's treasured computer was shut off. Indeed, the only light in the room came from the flat screen TV, currently playing a children's cartoon. It took Mikado sometime to even notice Izaya, and when he did, he was shocked. The informant was curled up, nearly in fetal-position, on the couch, clutching a number of blankets around his skinny frame. Those feral-rabbit-esque eyes stared numbly at the TV.

"Er..Orihara-san?" Mikado could hardly believe that this was Izaya he was looking at.

Slowly, the man shifted his blank gaze from the screen to Mikado.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He demanded bluntly.

Mikado was taken aback; When dealing with Izaya he'd come to expect bright, disconcertingly hungry smiles, personal-space invasions, and over-the-top solicitude, not...this.

"Um-"

"I'm not doing business today, so why don't you just leave?"

"I'm not here for that," Mikado said honestly.

"Ha. Are you trying to tell me that you actually want to be here?" Izaya's tone was bitter.

"Well, no," Mikado said, still sticking to honesty.

Izaya flopped onto his belly to face the TV.

"Nobody ever does," he sighed, "So I repeat: what the hell do you want?"

"Namie wanted me to...help you," Mikado realized how lame this sounded, but he was too bad a liar to try and make up an excuse. Besides, now that he was here, he agreed that Izaya most certainly needed some sort of help; this shift in behavior was rather depressing. Then it hit Mikado: "Orihara-san, are you depressed?"

Suddenly in Boy-Scout mode, Mikado went to sit across from Izaya on the couch. Izaya looked up at him with depressed-feral-bunny-eyes.

"How silly. Of course not."

"Don't lie."

Izaya humphed, and looked away.

"Why do you give a damn?" He asked sullenly, "Nobody else does."

This was a good question, actually. Mikado didn't have an answer, but he didn't say that, because he felt like he was making progress. Instead he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Izaya buried his face into a throw pillow, and Mikado had the exaperating sense that he was dealing with a five-year-old.

"Orihara-san!"

"Mmph," Izaya said intoto the pillow.

"I can't help you if you won't let me."

"Mmph," Izaya repeated firmly.

"Fine. Since I'm no use here, I'll just leave."

Mikado got up, only to hear Izaya's legs kicking at the couch cushions.

"Nobody likes me, everybody hates me," Izaya whined childishly, still adressing the pillow.

Mikado sat down. He wasn't sure at what point he'd become Izaya's personal psychologist, but it seemed he was stuck with the role.

"And why do you think that is?" The teen asked, in what he thought was a very psychologist-y manner.

"Mmph."

Oh dear God, not this again. Mikado lunged forward and grabbed the pillow. Izaya pouted. Mikado gave him a firm look.

Izaya sighed, and, like a first grader reciting a boring lesson, said, "Because I'm a heartless bastard who enjoys making people suffer for my own amusement."

Mikado nodded-this seemed like an accurate assessment.

"But I can't help it," Izaya whined, "It's just the way I am. It's in my DNA. Whatever happened to unconditional love?"

Mikado stared.

"Honestly, I'm trying really hard to feel sympathy for you, but I just...can't."

"Mikado-kun, imagine what it's like to be me," Izaya sat up, keeping eye-contact with the teen before him, "to care infinitely about billions upon billions of people, and only be despised in return. Endless Rejection! Everything I do, I do out of love, and they hate me for it!"

Mikado was shocked to find himself nodding. The thing about Izaya was that, if you weren't paying attention, he could trick you into thinking that what he said actually made sense, so that his insanity seemed logical, and it was just the rest of the world that was crazy. But Mikado refused to let himself be mindfucked. He re-gathered his wits.

"But Orihara-san, since you know your behavior makes people hate you, and you don't want to be hated, why don't you just stop?" To Mikado, this was mind-bogglingly simple. To Izaya, not so much.

"Because it's too much fun," The informant responded simply.

Mikado gaped, then gaped some more. This confession was just the last straw.

"If you're able to admit you have a problem, you should be able to fix it, not just sit and mope around about how sucky it is that you're horribly deranged!" Mikado nearly shouted, "It's disgusting!"

Mikado took a deep breath after finishing his quasi-rant. Izaya stared at him with wide, fluffy-bunny eyes. Mikado sighed. It was time to change gears.

"Right. Stay here. I'll be back in twenty minutes.

**OoO**

In trying situations, it is best for one to stick with what they know. As a quiet, polite, small-town teenager, Mikado knew very little about comforting depressed psychopaths with sadistic tendencies. However, as a quiet polite, small-town teenager brought up by a single mother, Mikado knew a thing or two about placating heartbroken middle-aged women after the inevitable bad break-up.

It is for this reason that Mikado was currently being snuggled against Izaya's pajama-clad chest as the informant shoveled down a pint of Ben and Jerry's and watched The Notebook. Oddly enough, this tactic seemed to be working. Apparently, depressed psychopaths and heartbroken forty-somethings aren't as different as one might think.

Mikado sighed; this was not how he'd intended to spend his Sunday. From this position, Mikado could only look out over Izaya's shoulder, but that was fine; he didn't really have a burning desire to see The Notebook (again.) As Izaya happily cuddled the small teen, Mikado reflected on how true it was that you really can get used to anything.

When Namie came into the room to check Mikado's progress, she barely lifted her eyebrows at the seen; of all the things she'd caught Izaya doing, this was hardly the strangest.


End file.
